


Professional Development

by Frellywellies



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frellywellies/pseuds/Frellywellies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern Mercy Street AU in which Summers’ aversion to paying for anything ever forces surgical residents Jed, Byron, Anne and Mary to road trip to a small conference in the middle of nowhere. This can only end in tears. Or blood. Or tears of blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Smelton or Bust

The inevitable bullshit began before they even left the parking lot. Byron had worked himself up into a lather, as per usual, and was shouting at Jed, who was resting his head on the roof of his car and periodic lifting his forehead up, only to lower it again with a dull thunking sound.

“You’re not driving, Hale,” he said in the loud monotone he always used when he was tired of arguing but hadn’t won yet. 

“I’m just concerned about the range–”

“THE RANGE IS–” Jed visibly bit back another screed about recent advancements in the Tesla’s battery life. “That’s not even the issue. The issue is that you’re a terrible driver. I saw you kill a dog.” 

“I killed one dog!” Byron wailed. 

“You only get one dog murder!” Jed shouted back. 

Anne, who had been flipping lazily through her phone, looked up at the two of them. “You killed a dog?” 

“It was one of those miniature yorkshire terriers,” Byron snapped. “They are so…damned small.” 

Professional development, Mary repeated to herself. Professional development. 

“Phinney!” Jed shouted, having apparently just spotted her. It was by far the happiest he had ever been to see her and Mary couldn’t help the silly little flip her stomach did as he trotted over to her. 

“Thank god you’re here,” he muttered, taking her arm and practically dragging her toward the car. 

“Everyone’s here now, Hale,” he said pointedly, “so can we just get in the damn car and go?” 

Byron looked at Mary, who gave him a shrug. “Anne…” he started, but she just raised her index finger at him. 

“Don’t care,” she sing-songed, having already gone back to her phone. 

“Fine,” he grumped. “But I need to ride up front.” 

“Nope,” Jed said, throwing the driver’s side door open, “Phinney has shotgun, she already called it.” 

“Mary,” Byron sounded genuinely hurt so Mary gave his arm a squeeze. 

“Sorry,” she said, “I…get carsick.” She didn’t–Mary had a stomach like a cast iron barrel–but she figured that putting Jed and Byron within six inches of each other for hours on end was a recipe for disaster. Clearly Jed thought so as well. 

“Children,” Anne said in her clipped accent, which always made everything sound so scornful. “One of these days you’ll have to just whip them out and measure them once and for all, won’t you?” She circled around the car, winking at Jed as she lowered herself into the backseat.  

“Well. That’s horrifying.” He gave Mary a WTF? look over the top of the car and she just shrugged. Who could solve a problem like Anne Hastings? 

The two of them slid into the car, Jed immediately started doing something complicated-looking with the console. Mary had never been in his car before as part of her personal commitment to not spending time alone in enclosed spaces with attractive-but-attached men. She had to admit, there was something sharp and appealing about it. It felt a little bit like riding shotgun in a space ship. “Is…is there an iPad embedded in this car?” she asked. 

“Yup,” he said, inputting details from the informational sheet Summers had given them. Mary could not tamp down her eyeroll.  

“What?” 

Mary shook her head. “Nothing.” 

“It is clearly not nothing.” He had picked up the scent now and was practically grinning. He loved provoking her to bit of priggery or judgement.

Mary tried to be non-committal instead. “It’s just…a little much, isn’t it?” she asked carefully. 

“It’s the eco-conscious car of the future, Mary. I read that in the owner’s guide.”  

It certainly wasn’t just an obscenely expensive toy for trust fund babies and tech bros with far more money than self-control…. “The future’s just a little…ostentatious, I guess.”  

“Gosh, Mary” Jed slapped his forehead in mock forgetfulness, “my horse and buggy is in the shop. Is there an appropriately self-flagellating car you’d like me to buy instead? Perhaps a Dodge Dart? Or a Fiat?”

Mary knew from experience that he could riff like that for hours so she decided to cut him off before he got started. “Where are we going?” she asked loudly, as though she had not pored over all the scanty information that Summers had provided. 

“…Smelton, Nevada,” Jed said, his forehead wrinkling slightly. “Which is a…town. Allegedly.” 

“Is it not enough that we have to drive ourselves?”  Anne complained from the backseat. Byron had squeezed in next to her and she had promptly dumped her bag on his lap. “Summers can’t even send us to a first-rate conference? All conferences should be in Vegas. You go to the buffet, you get giardia, a prostitute gives you her business card and everyone goes home happy.”

“You lead a thrilling life, my dear,” Byron said as Anne proffered a cheek for a kiss.  

The car’s iPad display had produced a route to their destination and Mary and Jed looked balefully upon it. It was more than 500 miles to Smelton, Nevada. Roughly 8 hours, depending on traffic. 

“Are we leaving now?” asked Anne from the back seat. “I need to know when to take my Xanax.” 

“Now,” Jed said, starting the car. “Please take your xanax now.” 

                                                          ***

Mary had been so happy when Summers first approached her about the conference. She’d thought for sure that this signaled a sea-change in his ever-fluctuating personnel hierarchy. It just had to mean that he was finally taking her seriously as a surgeon.

Then she found out that Jed Foster was being sent (which, honestly, wasn’t that much of a surprise. Jed was Summers’ acknowledged favorite. So much so that it was, as Emma often said, hard to tell whether Summers was trying to mentor him or have sex with him). And Byron Hale had somehow wrangled an invitation. And that, when Anne Hastings found out about that (because Byron couldn’t keep a secret if someone actually glued his lips together) she had raised hell until Summers was forced to include her. He’d added Mary to the list because “I suppose you’ll all want to go now.” “All” meaning female surgical residents, of which there were exactly two. 

So her excitement had been dampened considerably even before she found out that Summers wasn’t shelling out for plane tickets. And that the conference itself was in a nowhere desert town in the middle of Nevada. 

“Don’t go,” Emma advised her. “It sounds like a literal nightmare.” 

“I can’t not go,” Mary moaned. “What if this is the thing that pushes me over the edge in Summers’ eyes? You know what a good letter of rec from him could do for me.” 

Emma had just shaken her head because she knew as well as Mary did that there were no amount of conferences, no magic number of late-nights or hours of studying that she could perform that would make Summers give two shits about her. Summers paid almost no attention to the female residents–everyone knew it, he’d been like that for 30 years and he wasn’t going to change it all up now because Mary was just so damn  _ conscientious _ . 

She knew all these things and yet the Hermione Granger in her was strong. And so to the conference she went. “Text me,” Emma told her before she left. “Text me all the time. Whenever you think you’re going to snap and murder them all. So…all the time.” 

Despite the fact that she was seven years younger than her and not in the surgical department (she was a nurse) Mary had become good friends with Emma almost immediately upon arriving at the hospital. Emma was eminently sensible and forthright but she had a sense of easiness about her that Mary envied. Emma was…fun. Something that could rarely be said of Mary. 

Most importantly for her purposes this weekend, though, Emma was positively glued to her phone and seemed to be constantly embroiled in at least three separate text chains at any given time. Mary could be assured that, no matter when she needed her, Emma would be there with sympathy and emojis. 

“Individually, they’re not the bad,” Mary had told her and Emma had snorted. 

“Anne’s pretty bad.” 

“They just have…big personalities.”

Emma laughed at her. “Mary, I’m from the South. “Big personalities” is the sort of thing folks down there say when they really mean “assholes.”” 

“They’re not assholes. Not…completely.” It was true. Mary was mildly fond of Byron, despite his totally unwarranted egotism. Partially it was his clearly awful on-again, off-again thing with Anne–it had a way of making Mary feel bad for him–but it was also that, in isolation, without Anne to please or Jed to antagonize, he was a pretty reasonable guy. 

And Jed himself, well…Mary had actually liked Jed a lot when she first joined the program. A “Not Safe For Work” amount of like, actually. The thing was, Summers’ favoritism wasn’t entirely unwarranted–Jed was a very impressive surgeon. But it was more than that. And less too. It was something Mary hadn’t ever really felt before, a sort of physiological draw, something strong and simple. So simple, in fact, that it turned out to be quite stupid. Because Jed had a very serious long-term, long-distance girlfriend who was perpetually “just about” to move out West. 

So Mary had tried to distance herself. Emma had summed it up well. “Your lady business likes him but your brain is too smart for that.” 

Jed himself seemed to delight in getting in Mary’s way, however. There was a while there where he seemed to be behind every corner, in every room and hallway she wanted to be. He loved to point out her mistakes and needle her insecurities and he never seemed happier than when he was tormenting her. 

As for Anne…well, she had sized Mary up immediately and, upon realizing that Mary was not angling for a chief of surgery position at a top-tier hospital, she had quickly decided that Mary was no great threat to her and could be safely ignored. 

“I fully support your dream of sewing baby faces back on in Africa, or whatever,” she had said to her once, with a somewhat convincing facsimile of warmth. 

“That’s not even remotely correct but, thank you,” Mary had managed in return.

Any one of them in isolation was a challenge, to be sure, but not unmanageable. All of them together, though? Packed into a single car? Driving for hours through the featureless desert? Mary’s initial strategy had been to just stay out of it…whatever “it” happened to be. She quickly found that an untenable solution, however. 

Byron seemed weirdly affronted that Jed hadn’t bothered to make a playlist for the trip. “It’s like you don’t even care about the team building element of this trip!” Anne had drifted into a Xanax-induced sleep on his shoulder. 

“Here,” he said, thrusting his phone towards Mary. “I have a general driving playlist that might work in a pinch–”

“Byron,” Jed managed through gritted teeth, “I love this car more than I will ever love any human child, but I swear to God, you put your hand up here one more time and I’m taking it right off a cliff.” 

Mary sighed and handed Byron’s phone back to him. “Byron, we’ll turn the radio on, okay? Jed, relax, where are you even going to find a cliff in the desert anyway?” 

Like all the best compromises, it pleased neither party but Byron sat back obediently and Jed flicked something on the wheel, activating the sound system. 

“This is All Things Considered and I’m Robert Siegel…” 

A groan went up in the car, even Anne got sleepily in on the action. “What?” Jed said. “Seriously? Are you people grown-ups or what?” 

He gave Mary a pleading look. “Et tu, Phinney?” 

“I’m sorry. It’s the NPR cadence,” Mary admitted, “it makes me zone out.” 

The next half hour was tough. They couldn’t agree on a radio station for more than the length of a single song and Byron kept trying to get a sing-along going (Mary was willing to participate during  _ I Shot the Sheriff _ but she wasn’t going anywhere near  _ No Scrubs _ ). It was a mixed blessing when Anne woke up and initiated what would be the first of roughly 7,000 bathroom stops. 

**I think Anne is not okay. Like, maybe she has an actual bladder control problem.** Mary texted Emma while the rest of them waited outside the little convenience store. 

_ ha! say that to her but def wait til i am there because she will think u are calling her old and then she will eat ur heart.  _

“Who are you texting all the time?” Jed’s voice startled her a little and Mary tipped her phone to the side automatically, even though she didn’t have anything to hide. “Boyfriend?” 

Mary reddened slightly and pulled a face. “No. It’s Emma.” 

“Southern Accent Nurse?” 

“Yes, that would be her Internet Movie Database credit in the movie of your life,” Mary snorted. 

“I’ve just never really talked to her,” Jed protested. “I can’t possibly know the names of all the nurses.” 

“It’s actually very possible to know the names of all the nurses. Emma, Isabelle, Mrs. Brannen, Percival–” Mary ticked them off on her fingers. 

“Wait, we have a nurse named Percival?” 

She smiled at him. “Okay,  _ Jedediah _ .” 

“It’s a family name! Some great-great grandfather who did a thing in the Civil War or something….” he trailed off as Anne passed the front of the car, clutching an enormous electric blue slurpee in one hand. “I thought you had to use the bathroom,” he said as she climbed back into the car. 

Anne gave him a Look over her sunglasses. “I wasn’t aware we’d instituted a one act per stop rule. Just so I know in the future, am I allowed to both pee and wash my hands? Or shall we all just suffer?” 

“I’m just saying, Anne, we don’t have unlimited time to make this drive.”

Anne’s sole answer was a sustained slorking sound as she sucked down more slurpee. 

“What flavor is it?” Mary inquired politely. 

“Blue,” Anne told her cheerfully, “and also vodka.” 

                                                         ***

**Emma, if you love me at all you will develop an app that lets you send poison gas via text message and you will END MY LIFE RIGHT NOW.**

_ whats up?  _

**Anne won’t stop lasciviously eating gummy worms.**

_ … _

_ … _

_ ….wut _

**Everything I just texted is true. This is happening right now as we speak. Type. This is my real life.**

_ o bby girl. u kno it’s not too late to be a nurse instead, right? _

                                                        ***

Of course Byron Hale was clearly, painfully jealous of Jed and his position has Summers’ right-hand resident but it was Anne who posed the real threat, Mary had observed. Anne wanted to be a star–preferably  _ the _ star–wherever she was and, in their program, Jed was the one standing in her way. 

The entire time that Mary had known her, Anne had been on a sustained campaign to disrupt, demoralize and otherwise simply  _ fuck his shit up _ in whatever way she could manage. Mary was also pretty sure that she was a functional alcoholic. 

Two thirds of the way into her slurpee, she was draped over the back of the driver’s seat, her alarmingly blue mouth right up against Jed’s ear. “So, who are you planning on fucking at the conference?” she said, way more loudly than was necessary. 

Jed twitched, sending the car into a mild swerve. Mary was grateful that they were on yet another long, uninterrupted stretch of clear highway. “Are you even still buckled in? Sit back! Also, do you realize how loud you are talking right now?” 

“She does have a point,” Byron piped up, which never helped anything. “Everyone knows these things are 20% panels and 80% sex with people you see once a year.” 

“I’m surprised that Eliiiiiiiiza is comfortable with you going.” Anne chomped the head from a gummie worm, clicking her teeth in Jed’s ear. “I know the poor thing has such trust issues…”

“She doesn’t have trust issues,” Jed snapped, half turning in his seat. Mary reached over and steadied the wheel. 

“Uh…Jed?”

But he wasn’t listening to her. “You don’t even know her, anyway! The two of you have never met!” 

“Yes,” Anne mused, a gummy worm still protruding from her mouth. “Isn’t it odd how we’ve been working together for a year and a half now and I’ve never met your very important girlfriend?” 

Jed opened his mouth but Mary interrupted the both of them. “Do you want me to drive so you guys can argue more efficiently?” 

Anne sank down into the back seat like a deep-sea eel returning to the depths and Jed shoo’d Mary’s hand away from the wheel. “I’m fine,” he snapped. 

“I’m in your head, Foster!” Anne intoned, waggling her fingers at him like a particularly tipsy wyrd sister.

Jed turned up the radio as high as it would go. 

                                                          ***

**How long have you been at the hospital again?**

_ 3 yrs _

**Have you ever met Jed’s girlfriend?**

_ don’t think so. but they’ve been together for like ten yrs and no engagement ring r anything so u kno  _

…and then she’d just sent a series of flag emojis

_ sry, tried to find red ones. best I cld do was flag of georgia. (country not state) _

                                                          ***

Near Reno, they had to stop to charge the car, much to Byron’s delight. “Twenty minutes?” he crowed, “that’s ridiculous! Did you know that peak oil is a myth….” 

Mary prudently decided to take a walk to stretch her legs. She found a nice little stand of trees between a Valero and a 24-Hour laundromat and she paused there to cycle through a couple of yoga poses. She figured some mindfulness couldn’t go awry right about now. In a final burst of fitful energy she even used a tree to catch herself as she kicked her way up into a handstand for a few seconds. The rush of blood to her head prickled her skin in a refreshing sort of way. 

When she got back to the car, Byron was nowhere to be seen but Jed and Anne were arguing (because apparently this road trip had some sort of unwritten rule that at least two people had to be fighting about something dumb at all times). 

“I wasn’t watching-watching her,” Jed was saying. “I was just…watching her. Like watching out for her. This is basically a truck stop, you don’t know who’s lurking around here.” 

“It’s a Tesla supercharging station, Jed,” Anne said flatly. “What, is someone was going to corner her and give her a lecture about bitcoin?” 

Anne spotted Mary over Jed’s shoulder and her eyes lit up with a totally unfriendly species of glee. “Mary!” she called eagerly. “All limbered up, are we?” 

“I don’t…really know how to respond to that.” 

“There’s no good way,” Jed muttered. 

                                                           ***

Somehow, Byron had located pie, which he tucked into happily as they merged back on the freeway. 

“Ah yes, pie. The most convenient of road foods,” Jed said drily as Byron attempted to divvy up the slice into chunks using only the flat part of a plastic fork. 

He passed a piece up to Mary, who nibbled at it awkwardly from her cupped hand. “This is very nice,” she said. 

“Ollaberry,” Byron informed her, “a local speciality. I always like to try to authentic local food when I travel.” 

Mary just nodded and decided not to bring up the fact that he had purchased this pie at a diner connected to a gas station. 

“Really?” Jed glanced at the little hillock of pastry in Mary’s palm dolefully. “Everyone gets pie but me?” 

Mary sighed and broke off a smaller morsel. “I’ll give you some, if you don’t mind my fingers.”

“Pie me, Phinney,” he told her, opening his mouth so she could deposit the pie chunk inside. He closed his mouth a little too fast, though, catching the tips of her fingers with his lips and Mary felt a discomforting heat in her lower belly. She withdrew her hand, holding it delicately in her lap as though it had been burned. 

She hadn’t even noticed Anne moving forward to insinuate herself between the seats, but suddenly the other woman was there, apparently watching the pie handoff with interest. 

“Mary,” Anne said in the utterly innocent tone she used when she was being particularly devious, “how long have you been doing yoga?” 

“Uh…a few years, I guess? I started when I moved out here because I wanted to make friends in the city.” 

“Well, it’s very impressive. You’re so…fit.” 

“Thanks,” Mary said, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Anne never offered compliments except as part of some grander scheme. “I used to run track,” Mary added, “in college. But I fell out of the habit.” 

“Oh, that makes sense. You have a runner’s body. Don’t you think so, Foster?” Anne purred. 

“I am not a participant in this conversation.” Jed stared resolutely at the road in front of them. 

Anne laughed. Her laughter always seemed so…exclusionary. As though there was some joke that only she was privy to. “But surely you have an opinion? You’re such a  _ keen observer _ , after all?” 

The atmosphere in the car had gotten very…weird. Even Byron had abandoned his pie and was now looking at Jed.

“What sports do you do?” Mary asked, as brightly and obliviously as she could manage. 

“Sex and binge-drinking don’t count,” Jed added. 

Anne just sniffed at him. “They do if you do them correctly.” 

                                                          ***

**Has anyone ever malevolently tried to get you laid?**

_ like w/ roofies? _

**No, just like with bad advice. And insinuations.**

_ uh, yeah. bad advice about sex is basically a summary of high school for me. and my relationship w/ my sis. and w/ my 1st boyfriend. god that guy sucked.  _

**I don’t want to discount the idea that I have gone insane after a solid five hours in this car but…I’m pretty sure Anne’s trying to get Jed and I to hook up.**

_ yeah that sounds lk anne _

**In what sense?**

_ in the sense that it’s fucking crazy and so is anne _

_ u don’t need to get all tangled up in jed foster’s weird relationship drama AND u dont need to start something with a person u work with AND u dont need summers looking at u weird cause ur sleeping w/ his golden boy AND if anne is trying to make it happen it’s probs bad for at least 1 of u _

**All of those are good points.**

_ …but ur still kinda thinking about it, aren’t u?  _

**No! Not seriously.**

_ ok so here’s how it’s gonna be: if anne is the devil on ur shoulder, I’m gonna be ur angel. i will steer u right and if u start thinking that maybe u shld hit that after all, TEXT ME & I will slap all the sense into u _

**Oh Emma. You are always my angel.**

_ i got u boo. _


	2. The _______ Hole

According to the iPad route, they were about an hour out from the hotel. In the backseat, Byron and Anne were both sleeping deeply. Even Mary was drifting in and out, staring at a dull blue darkness out the window undifferentiated by the lights of civilization.

 

She hadn’t realized she was actually sleeping until she awoke to a gentle hand on her knee, a hesitant little shake. “Phinney,” Jed said softly, presumably he was trying to avoid disturbing the others. “Wake up.”

 

“What’s up?” she murmured.

 

“Sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely contrite (and biting back a yawn), “but I’m falling asleep here. You gotta keep me awake.”

 

He did look tired, his eyelids drooping in the bluish glow of the dash and the white light from the half-moon outside. They had stopped about fifteen minutes back for a gas station coffee, but apparently that hadn’t done the trick.

 

“Okay…” Mary said slowly, wondering how he expected her to keep him alert. Should she sing marching songs? Punch him repeatedly in the arm?

 

“Talk to me,” he explained. “Tell me...about yourself. About your life.”

 

Mary laughed. “My life is a lot like yours. The hospital and home. Not in equal proportions.” Mary couldn’t even remember, in fact, the last time that she had gone out and done something non-work related. Perhaps when Emma dragged her out for her birthday? ...was that already six months ago?

“Oh come on, I refuse to believe you’re that boring.”

 

Mary bristled slightly. “I’m not boring. I’m busy. I’m trying to accomplish things, just like we all are.”

 

“Well, not exactly,” Jed laughed. “I just mean...you know. Everyone knows you’ve got some...loftier goals than the rest of us mere mortals.”

 

He had a way of making her sound so damn smug. Like all of her dreams and aspirations were really just ways of assuring herself that she really was a good person. Sometimes, when Mary was feeling particularly disillusioned with herself, she thought the same thing.

 

“It’s not saintly to specialize in reconstructive surgery. The applications are innumerable and--”

 

“How did you interpret ‘keep me awake’ as ‘please give me your job interview spiel’?” He chuckled, seeing Mary’s stony look. “I’m not trying to offend you, Phinney. It’s genuinely impressive. You’re impressive.”

 

Mary looked at him, startled. He was watching the road and nothing about his expression suggested he thought he’d said anything remarkable. Mary was still dwelling on his words ( _You’re impressive_ ) when he continued his thought. “You’re just kind of a bleeding heart, you know? For example: how long have you lived in the city.”

 

“Six...uh, no, seven, now. Seven years.”

 

“Right, and you still give change to every panhandler you run across. You keep ones in your pocket expressly for that purpose!”

 

Mary wondered where he’d gotten that information. Unless he paid a whole lot more attention to her than she’d thought?

 

“I just think that, if you believe something, you should believe it all the time. Not just when it’s convenient.” She hated how stiff she sounded. She always defaulted into sternness when she was uncertain. And Jed made her so uncertain.

 

“I’m not saying it’s bad. Not at all. Just...a little naive, maybe?” he gave her a hopeful, don’t-be-mad-at-me sort of look. “You could hand out ten thousand dollars to people every year, Phinney, and there would still be folks on the street without access to proper housing or medical care because it’s just a bigger problem than you and your singles can solve.”

 

Mary had never really heard him talk like that before. She was always under the impression that Jed just sort of...floated along, buffered on all sides by the advantages he had been born with. It did remind her, though, of something her father had once said: no one becomes cynical without a few major heartbreaks.

 

Something of her thoughts must have showed on her face because Jed crooked an eyebrow at her. “What? I can’t care about stuff? I care about stuff. I just think that we should all do what we can with what we have. I can’t solve every problem the world has, but I’m a hell of a surgeon. That I can do.” He shifted in his seat as he spoke, rolling his shoulders against the leather.

 

“Are you okay?” Mary asked and he nodded.

 

“Yeah, it’s just driving for long distances. It always messes with my upper back.”

 

Mary could imagine what he was talking about--knots in the upper trapezius, something she experienced all the time. She even reached out towards him automatically before she realized what she was doing. “Um...may I?” she asked, gesturing towards his shoulders. If it had been Emma or any of her other friends, she wouldn’t have thought anything of it but with Jed, even the mildest of physical encounters always became so...messy.

 

Jed seemed momentarily at a loss for words. That was new. “S-sure,” he managed finally, stooping forward slightly to allow her access.

 

Mary pressed her fingers along the length of his shoulder in an exploratory fashion. “Yikes, do you ever do any stretches? Or see a massage therapist?”

 

“What? With all my free time, you mean?” Jed grumbled.

 

“It takes ten minutes. No one is that busy.” Mary found a particularly dense knot and he squirmed slightly as she pressed down on it.

 

“Just a moment,” she murmured, pressing hard until she felt a little give that suggested the knot was loosening. She smoothed the area with her knuckles then, until Jed made an odd, growl-like sound and pressed his shoulder back into her hand.  

 

“You are really good at this,” he said rapturously. “Man, why are you even bothering with this whole surgery thing?”

 

Mary laughed and smoothed a smaller knot near the curve of his scapula. “Yup, that’s going to save countless lives.”

 

“Hey,” Jed said, with a surprising softness in his voice, “you’re making my world a hell of a lot better right now. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”

 

Mary withdrew her hand feeling suddenly that Emma would not approve of this interaction. “You should have let someone else drive for a while,” she said. “You’re going to be tired for the conference.”

 

“I don’t think Anne’s been legal to drive since 8 o’clock this morning and if you’re suggesting I put Byron Hale behind the wheel of my car, then I feel like you don’t really know me at all.”

 

“I meant me. I could have driven for a while.”

 

Jed gave her a sidelong glance and a slow grin. “You secretly wanna drive the Tesla, don’t you?”

 

“That’s not what I said.” Mary tried to tamp down her own smile.

 

“Come ooooon. Give in to its bourgeois seductions. You know you want to, Mary…”

 

“Watch the road,” she said, “and I’ll tell you about the time my brother almost got trampled by a pig.”

 

Jed pumped his fist. “Phinney farm stories, yes!”

 

***

They actually drove past the hotel--nope, definitely motel--once and had to make a U-turn in the middle of the empty street. A large, poorly maintained hedge had blocked the structure almost completely from view.

 

Mary wasn’t exactly surprised at the condition of the place. It looked more or less like all of the little failing roadside inns they’d passed on this lonesome highway only slightly more decrepit, if possible. No one here apparently had the wherewithal--or the hope--required to repaint the buildings or maintain the asphalt or even to fix the one room where someone had torn the door off its hinges. Instead, they’d hung up a blanket in the doorway and someone taped a big sign in the window that said KNOCK FIRST.

 

It was a U-shaped, single-story structure curled around the saddest pool that Mary had ever seen. When they pulled in, there were only three other cars in the parking lot.

 

“At least we know there probably aren’t enough people here to operate a meth ring,” Jed offered cheerfully.   

 

The place had a vaguely Southwestern theme with horse shoes on all the doors and molding on the building carved to look like lasso ropes. The only part of it that seemed remotely lively was what appeared to be a honky-tonk style bar attached to the main office. A neon Budweiser sign gleamed in the window.

 

“It has a...bar,” Mary observed.

 

“A resto-bar, actually,” Anne said. Mary jumped a little. She hadn’t heard either of them wake up. “According to our informational pamphlets, we get a voucher for a free breakfast.”

 

“And I’m sure we’ll all enjoy our cigarette butt omelets,” Jed muttered. There was another neon sign over the resto-bar’s entrance that was supposed to say The Watering Hole but the “Watering” portion had blinked out, leaving just “The Hole.”

 

It felt appropriate.

 

***

Anne, Byron and Mary waited in the car while Jed checked them in.

 

“It seems strange that we’re one of the first people to arrive,” Mary noted. Surely the people with actual plane tickets would have gotten in a bit earlier?

 

“Oh, this isn’t the conference hotel,” Byron chuckled. “The conference is further in town. At a Best Western, I believe.”

 

Mary turned around in her seat to look at him. “Are you serious?”

 

“Always,” Byron said in his guileless way. So Summers couldn’t even bring himself to book them rooms at a _Best Western_? How much could the savings possibly have been?

 

Jed appeared outside the office then, jogging back towards the car with a receipt and some keys clutched in one hand. They were the old-fashioned keys, too, the metal sort with a little leather fob on them. Mary hadn’t seen motel keys like that since she was a little girl.

 

“You will be not at all shocked to learn,” he said, opening the door and sliding back into his seat, “that Summers only booked us two rooms.”

 

Mary tried not to let her dismay show. She had known that spending the weekend rooming with Anne was a distinct possibility but, until this moment, she had hoped that she might wriggle out of it somehow.

 

“They seem to be more or less the same so you guys can pick whichever one you’d like,” Jed said, extending the keys towards Anne who delicately selected one.

 

“Byron and I shall take 107,” she said, “it’s further from the ice machine.”

 

“Wait---what?” Mary said, looking between Anne, Byron and Jed. None of them seemed quite as surprised by this as she felt they should be. “We aren’t…” she gestured between Anne and herself, “you know. Gender rooming?”

 

“Of course I’m going to stay with my boyfriend, Mary,” Anne almost sounded insulted, as though Mary had questioned the legitimacy of her stupid, terrible relationship. Byron perked up. Apparently he hadn’t noticed that she only called him her “boyfriend” when it was advantageous for her to do so.

 

“C’mon, Phinney,” Jed gave her shoulder a hearty shake. “It’s only two days and I’ll even let you control the air conditioner.”

 

“It’s cute how you think this place has a functioning air conditioner,” Mary said, giving him the best smile she could muster but even she could feel it was pretty lackluster. Sharing a room with Anne would have deeply unpleasant, to be sure but sharing a room with Jed was even worse, in its own special way. Mary inventoried her bag in her mind, had she brought anything weird or embarrassing? What had she brought to sleep in again? Would Jed think it was weird that she wore a night-guard? But what if the alternative was loud tooth grinding all night long? She was not equipped to handle this.  

***

**I’m sharing a room with Jed.**

 

_are you shitting me?_

 

**Nope. Anne insisted.**

 

_of course she did. ugh. ok. just try to stay out of the rm as much as u can. go 2 parties! dinners! whatever!_

 

**That might be a challenge. Apparently, we’re staying a couple miles away from the actual conference hotel. And Jed has our only form of transportation.**

 

_seriously!?! is summers trying 2 get u guys 2 breed & make a race of surgical superbabies?  _

 

**That’s not extremely helpful, Emma.**

 

_well give me an easier thing next time._

 

***

 

Nothing, including their rooms were very far from the tiny parking lot, so the four of them just retrieved their bags from the car and made their way over to 107 and 108 on foot. At least both of those rooms appeared to have functioning doors.

 

As they skirted the edge of the open pool, Mary noticed a strange shape in the shallow puddle of dark water at the bottom of the pit. “I...think there’s a dead seagull in that pool.”

 

Jed peered over her shoulder thoughtfully. “...indeed there is.”

 

“How did a seagull even get here?”

 

“The seagull probably asked himself the same question.”

 

The wind changed incrementally then and the smell from the pool wafted up at them. Mary and Jed staggered back in unison, covering their noses. “Yep,” Jed’s voice was slightly muffled through his hand, “that definitely smells like dead seagull.”

 

When they reached their door, Mary noticed a small hole underneath the number. Not a peephole, but rather just...a hole. Roughly the size and shape of a small caliber bullet. “We are going to die here,” she muttered.

 

“Nah,” Jed said, sliding the key into the lock, “I took a krav maga class once. We should be fine.” Just then, there was an insistent little beep from somewhere inside Jed’s pocket and he hung back slightly, holding the door open for Mary to enter.

 

For a moment, Mary just stood there. It was not the carpeting (the exact same color and texture as dirt) nor the tiny bathroom with the missing shower head (instead, a ragged metal spout just protruded from the wall) and not even the pretty obvious bloodstain on the single plush chair. It was the bed. The one bed, skulking in the corner like a sullen child. It was only a queen, as well. Just to add insult to injury, Mary supposed.

 

She thought briefly of sinking to her knees and raising her fist to the sky while bellowing “SUMMERS!!!” but she didn’t actually want to get that close to the carpet.

 

“That cheap son of a bitch,” she fumed. “You know he makes six figures, right? Six figures!”

 

But Jed wasn’t listening to her. Instead he was intently scrolling through his phone looking worried. He didn’t appear to have taken any notice of the bed situation and he’d just dumped his bag in the doorway. “I have to return a call. Calls,” he said, ducking back out the door. “Set up however you want.”

 

He didn’t bother to close the door behind him, probably assuming that Mary was a polite person who would never listen in on someone else’s private phone conversation.

 

And so she wouldn’t. Or she would try not to, at least.

 

She opened her bag and set about unpacking, in the limited way that she could. It was only after she had tried to put her extra pairs of underwear in the bedside table drawer with the complimentary bible that she realized she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate like this.

 

“Eliza, slow down,” Jed was saying at a perfectly audible level. There was eavesdropping and then there was just being a person with normal hearing acuity, right? “Remember what we said about not practicing lectures before you talk to me? Just talk to me like a person.”

 

Mary sat down on the edge of the bed and slid her phone out of her purse.

 

**Jed’s on the phone with his girlfriend. I think they’re arguing.**

 

_whoa!_

 

**Yeah. This is super awkward.**

 

_what r they fighting about?_

 

**Not sure yet.**

 

“What?” Jed half-shouted. “That’s Mary, she’s another resident. I’ve told you about her.”

 

**Oh shit, he said my name! Why am I in this conversation?**

 

_this is amazing_

 

“I took a ton of pictures today! I took a picture of a lizard I saw at a gas station, are you worried I’m gonna fuck that lizard?”

 

**Sounds like she’s mad about a picture? (Also, I guess Jed found a lizard at some point)**

 

_a picture? hold on. i’m on the case._

 

For a long time then, Jed was mostly quiet, though it didn’t seem to be by choice. He kept making little noises like he was trying to say something but he never quite managed to get a word out.

 

_holy shiz. jed has this pic of you on his instagram and, first of all, you look hot. second of all, it’s a total boyfriend pic and I see why she’s pissed_

 

**What is a boyfriend pic?**

 

_You know, like one of those pictures that dudes take to be all ‘look at my girl, I got the best one, everyone else go home.’ just go look at it, you’ll see what i mean._

 

Mary opened a browser window on her phone. She didn’t have an instagram account herself, so she used Emma’s profile to navigate over to Jed’s. He hadn’t been lying when he said he took a ton of pictures, there were probably 20 from today alone. Landscapes, shots of Hale sleeping with his mouth open, the aforementioned lizard and only one, in fact, of Mary.

 

She wondered when he had taken it because she certainly didn’t remember being photographed. Probably during one of their endless waits for Anne at a gas station or a truck stop. It was her in slight profile, her arm outstretched in the open window and her hair fluttering around her in a haze of brown. It was indeed a very flattering picture and Jed had captioned it simply PHINNEY.

 

“Hey,” Jed said loudly, interrupting her reverie. Mary reflexively closed the browser window, but of course he wasn’t talking to her. “If you’re so concerned about this, maybe you should try sharing physical space with me more than twice a year, huh?”

 

**Oh god. The argument is pivoting.**

 

“No,” Jed said wearily, “I’m not _threatening_ you. I’m just saying, the distance is making you paranoid….no, I know. I know. I know. But I’m not the one who cancelled the tickets, Eliza.”

 

**This is so awkward. I don’t want to hear this.**

 

_haha. liar._

 

“I have a job too, Eliza!” He was actually shouting now. Probably now even Anne and Byron could hear him from their room. “We both have jobs and yours is not the most important!” There was a moment of silence and then. “Seriously, Eliza? My mother is not in this relationship, I don’t care what she thinks about it!”

 

**She just said something about his mom.**

 

_like in a ur mom way?_

 

**No, Emma, I don’t think his girlfriend is playing the dozens with him right now.**

 

“Could any of this wait until I get back home? What---no--that’s not what I’m doing. Jesus! Whenever you want to end a conversation, then it’s “healthy distance” and when I want to end a conversation, it’s avoidance? That’s really fair, Eliza.”

 

More stifled silence, and then:

 

“I’m at work! I’m doing my job! I’m hanging up now because I need to do my actual job, which does have value, Eliza, no matter what you think!”

 

When Jed appeared again in the doorway, he had a hunted look, like a soldier returning from the front lines. “C’mon, Phinney,” he said, “we’re going to the resto-bar.”

 

“But I haven’t…” Mary stared down at her nearly un-unpacked bag “...set up my contact lens solution. It’s a special kind that needs--”

 

Jed pressed both of his hands together as though praying to her. “Mary, I am going to get drunk tonight. Like, truly, heroically shithammered and I need you to come with me because, if you don’t, I will do something life, career or relationship ending.”

 

“But can’t someone--”

 

“Hale can’t stop me,” Jed interrupted, “and Anne would help me. I need you, Phinney.”

 

Seven minutes later they were crunching their way across the gravel of the parking lot and Mary was angrily stabbing out a text to Emma: **why am I like this?**

 

_dudes needing you_ , Emma wrote back, _it’s your kryptonite, supergirl._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I love the sharing a bed trope! Anyway, next time on Professional Development: Mary offers love, career and beard advice, Byron explains his (deeply flawed) understanding of how open relationships work and also there's a mechanical bull.


	3. Eight Seconds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All relationship crises can be solved with the judicious application of mechanical bulls.

The Watering Hole proved surprising in a couple of ways. For one thing, it was pretty well populated. Perhaps there wasn’t all that much to do on a Thursday night in Smelton, Nevada?

For another thing, it took the Western theme extremely seriously. There were even a series of booths along the wall made up to look like old time-y jail cells with oddly realistic metal bars in front of them. “I bet you ten dollars this place has a cocktail you have to drink out of a boot,” Jed muttered when they stepped inside.

“Is that Byron?” Mary pointed towards a small table next to a broken cigarette machine and a functioning juke box. It was hard to tell with the way he was slumped, face-down next to a glass of golden liquor but it did in fact appear to be their traveling companion.

“He must have come directly here from the car,” Mary murmured, starting towards him but Jed caught her arm.

“Do you not feel that you’ve spent enough time with Byron Hale today?” he said, keeping his voice low, as though there were any chance of Hale overhearing them.

“But...look at him, Jed.” She gestured towards Hale’s pathetic form, which spoke more eloquently of his need for company than she ever could. Jed heaved a sigh.

“Fine. Go work your magic, but save some for me, okay? I’m getting drinks.”

Before Mary could work out exactly what that was supposed to mean, Jed had vanished into the little knot of people around the bar. Mary made her way over to Byron’s table and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Byron,” she said, “are you okay?”

“Mary!” Byron sat up so fast he almost disturbed his glass. He offered her a shaky smile and moved to pull out one of the chairs for her. “What are you doing here?”

“Jed wanted a drink. And some company,” Mary said, settling into the proffered chair.

“Say no more,” Byron said sagely. “I know how demanding he can be. Sorry he dragged you out, Mary.”

“It’s really fine. What about you? What’s going on? Where’s Anne?”

Byron cleared his throat awkwardly and took a long pull from his glass. “She is...uh...trying to get in touch with a friend, I believe.” By the look of his expression, what she was actually doing was trying to get a booty call off the ground. Probably with someone from the conference. Well, good luck getting someone to come all the way out here.

“I’m sorry, Byron.” Mary said and she meant it. Byron wasn’t the smartest (or the most socially apt or the most self-aware…) but he didn’t deserve to get yanked around constantly by Anne who was transparently biding her time with him until something better came along.

“Oh no, no sorries,” Byron assured her quickly (with another long drink). “Ours is an open relationship. I have no claim of monogamy on her--just as she has none on me. It may not work for everyone, but it does work for us.”

Mary decided it would be better to point out how interesting it was that Anne seemed to be the only one who ever stepped outside their allegedly open coupling. Or how none of that really accounted for the fact that she treated him like something between a particularly dumb child and a pack mule.

She was trying to decide what, in fact, she should say, when Byron placed his hand over hers and gave her a meaningful glance. “Oh, no…” she began but, just then, Jed appeared with an entire round bar tray populated with weird, tall shots in various vibrant colors.

“Seriously?” he said, setting the tray down in the middle of the table. “That’s obviously not happening, Hale.”

Byron put on his most affronted look. “I wasn’t trying to...start something with Mary! I wouldn’t do that! Not that Mary isn’t lovely.” He gave her a solicitous glance. “You’re very lovely.”

“Good to know,” Mary said, grabbing one of the shot glasses. She held it up to the light to examine what she now realized were multiple layers of colorful fluid. She had always wondered how bartenders managed to do that. “What is this, exactly?”

“These?” Jed lifted one shot glass thoughtfully before tossing it back like a 19 year old sorority sister at a homecoming rager. “These are Your Allegedly Loving Girlfriend Doesn’t Give The Tiniest of Shits About Your Career...shooters.”

“That seems like an unwieldy name.”

Jed shrugged at her and grabbed another shot. “Drink up while you still can, Phinney.”

Mary took an exploratory sip of the drink. “Bleugh! This tastes like...all the liquor. Mixed together.”

“It might also be that,” Jed admitted.

“So, having some lady troubles, Foster?” Hale asked, taking what he probably imagined was a knowing and worldly sip of his drink.

“Absolutely none of your business, Hale.” Jed was plowing steadily through the row of shots. Mary darted her hand in and took another, if only to keep him from drinking them all in immediate succession.

“Don’t discount me!” Hale warned. “I, too, know the sting of a partner who does not support your career aspirations.”

“That’s because your career aspirations are--” Jed began but Mary stopped him with a severe look. “Yeah,” he said instead, “it’s tough.”

“Where does Eliza live again?” He seemed genuinely curious. If Anne was hoping to undermine Jed’s relationship, she apparently hadn’t shared the details of her plot with Byron.

“New York,” Jed grimaced.

“That’s a challenge,” Byron mused. “But you are from there, yes?”

“Maryland. But close enough. Closer than California.” Jed made a face at an empty shot glass, as though it had insulted his mother.

“Does she want you move back?” Mary asked delicately. It wasn’t the kind of question she would normally ask--too specifically personal and too obviously a touchy subject for him at the moment. But she could not deny a little bereft feeling at the idea of Jed moving across the country to be with his girlfriend. Maybe these shots were extra fast-acting?

Jed laughed in an utterly joyless way. “Want? No. She believes, like the rest of my family, that I am in some sort of weird protracted defiant stage and, one day, I will wake up and realize that I’ve been wasting my time with this whole doctor thing and go to law school.”

“Law school?” Mary and Byron said together, the both of them undoubtedly experiencing the same visceral sensation of wrongness at the idea of Jed Foster, attorney at law.

“It’s the family business,” he said. “Sort of. My parents were both lawyers before my mother became a judge and my dad ran for state senate. Eliza is a lawyer. She’s a rising star, everyone expects her to enter politics.” He grimaced. “She’s truly the child my parents never had.”

“But your parents can’t seriously be disappointed that you became an incredibly successful surgeon,” Mary pointed out.

Jed shrugged. “You would think so and yet the sheer volume of passive-aggressive email forwards I get about the state of health care in America would suggest otherwise.”

“Also, these all appear to be empty,” he said, giving a shot glass the gimlet eye. “So I’m going to get more.”

“Hey,” Mary said, touching his arm, “trying getting something with like, max, three ingredients this time, okay?”

“Oh now we’re too fancy to drink mysterious garbage shots,” he teased. “The duchess over here with her artisan cocktails…”

“And tequila!” Mary called after him. “Get something with tequila in it!”

He had barely left the table when Anne stormed in, looking ready for a fight. She bee-lined for their table and grunted a single, eloquent “Ugh,” when she reached them, picking up Byron’s unfinished drink and sniffing deeply. “Scotch. How typical of you, Byron.” She wrinkled her nose but finished off the glass anyway.

“Hi Anne,” Mary offered as the other woman pulled a seat from a nearby table and sat down. “How did your...um...phone call go?” Anne gave her a venomous look that told Mary everything she needed to know. “Jed’s getting drinks…” she began but trailed off when Anne produced a small flask bedazzled with a rhinestone A and poured some of its contents into Byron’s now-empty glass.

“Wow,” Mary said. It was the only thing, she imagined, anyone could say.

“Life’s too short to pussy-foot around, Mary,” Anne said, with a wizened air.

“So you...aren’t going out tonight?” Byron said with a cautious sort of hope in his voice. It was this kind of thing that made it impossible for Mary to completely dislike him. She wanted to buy him a hot cocoa and tell him to advocate for himself.

Damn, those shots were fast-acting.

Jed’s trip to the bar was much shorter this time but apparently just as fruitful. His tray was loaded with nearly as many shot glasses (plus what appeared to two margaritas, shockingly pink in color). “Prickly pear,” he said when he saw her looking skeptically at the glasses. “The bartender said it was their absolute fanciest.”

“Anne,” he added, noticing her for the first time. “You sure are...here. At this table. After eight hours in a car with us.”

“My plans didn’t work out, Foster. I take it from your liquid dinner that yours didn’t either?”

Jed took a seat and planted one of the margaritas in front of Mary. “Who were you angling for this time?” He asked Anne.

“Eliott McKee. A cardio-thoracic surgeon from Seattle,” Anne admitted, taking another deep gulp from her glass. “He brought his wife along. Who does that? This is the worst vacation destination imaginable.”

“Married guy, huh? You’re all class, Hastings.”

Anne snorted and gestured loopily at Jed and Mary. “And what about this then? I presume the two of you were just going to...practice writing thank-you notes and using fish forks, right?”

Jed opened his mouth angrily but Mary beat him to the punch. “We’re just getting a drink after a long day, Anne. Nothing to see here,” she said calmly. She took a sip of her margarita, which she would estimate was a solid 70 percent tequila, 30 percent prickly pear. Well, at least The Watering Hole would never be accused of having a light pour.

“McKee’s hospital is second rate anyway. And he’s easily the least important surgeon on staff,” Anne mused, having immediately forgotten that she was supposed to be harassing Jed.

“Then why were you so intent on meeting up with him?” Mary could not help but ask her. Anne looked at her across the table and her expression was bleak. Mary had a strange sense that Anne was, for lack of a better term, about to get real with her.

“Because you never know what it will be,” she said, an ineffable sort of sadness in her voice. “You never know if there’s something more, something better. You take every chance you get because the world is not exactly bristling with them. Not for us.” She shook her head a little and swallowed the rest of her drink. Byron was staring at her with something unreadable on his face.

“What does that mean? ‘Us’? You and Mary?” Jed asked.

“Women in surgery, I would imagine,” Mary said and Anne tapped her nose triumphantly. “It’s always going to be a little harder.”

“You’re both doing very well, though...right?”

Anne and Mary both laughed. Mary thought it was probably the only time they’d been on the same side of a joke. “If we do well it’s because we’re constantly hustling,” Mary told him as gently as possible. “Summers doesn’t want us on staff, we have to force him to even look our way. It’s not like the thing you have going on.”

Anne’s method was not one that Mary herself would employ—too cynical. Mary preferred to believe that it was better to get by as well as one could without playing the very specific networking game that Anne excelled in.

“It’s not even about sex,” Anne had told her once, in a similar moment of unvarnished candor. “All they really want to know that, under the right circumstances, they could fuck you. It makes up for it, a little.”

“It,” of course being the effrontery of allowing a woman into the rarefied space of a surgical theater. At all times, in all ways, they had to be wary of flattering the male ego.

Jed furrowed his brow with the confused frustration of a man who had just discovered a new wrinkle in his ordered universe. “But you’re both extremely talented,” he insisted, with all the verve of college freshman after his first sociology class.

“Damn straight,” Anne said and Mary nodded.  
  
“Yep,” Mary took another long drink, the tequila warming her throat pleasantly. “And we work long hours and we don’t complain about crappy schedules or unfair assignments and we go to conferences in the middle of nowhere and we still can’t compete with you and your penis.” She waved her hand at Jed in an all-encompassing sort of way.

“It doesn’t have to be a competition, though,” Jed said earnestly. “What about...being friends?”

“You want me to be friends with your penis?”’ Okay. Mary was definitely tipsy now.

“Not just...I mean...the whole…” Jed pounded a shot, presumably to avoid finishing that sentence. “You know what I mean,” he concluded, grimacing.

Anne snorted and took one of the shots from the tray, much to Jed’s visible displeasure. “You know better than anyone, Foster, that resources aren’t unlimited. There are only so many top positions in the country, only so many good hospitals. And there’s only ever one best anywhere you go.”

“And McKee will help you be the best?” Hale said, far too loudly. Mary looked at him, startled. He had been so broodingly silent all this time that she had almost forgotten he was still sitting here. From the expression on Anne’s face, she had as well.

“Perhaps…” she was obviously uncomfortable but, for once, Byron didn’t appear to be interested in backing down.

“And that’s what important about your relationships? How they benefit you and your career?” He said “your career” the way someone might say “your unchecked herpes.”

Mary and Jed exchanged discomforted glances across the table before taking identical deep drinks of their margaritas.

“Byron,” Anne’s tone softened uncharacteristically, “there are relationships and then there are _relationships_ \--”

“I really don’t think there are!” Byron was practically shouting now.

“Hey,” Jed said, leaning across the table towards Mary, “wanna go literally anywhere else at all?”

Mary nodded fervently. “Let’s hit up one of those jail cells.”

***  
 **Anne and Byron are at the bar.**

_yes! that’s good! let them b ur buffer_

**I don’t think they’re buffing anything tonight. Looks like a pretty bad state of union convo.**

_Ugh. they couldn’t wait 1 night 2 talk about how their terrible relationship is terrible?_

**What, to prevent my drama?**

_YES!_  
***

“We’ve got the prickly pear margaritas and Tequila Sunrises and the Rattlesnake Surprise. That one comes in a little boot.”

Then the bewildered waitress stood there awkwardly while Jed and Mary laughed uncontrollably for several minutes.

“We’ll take four of them!” Jed finally managed.

“I’m going to drink that boot-alcohol and I’m not even gonna feel bad about it,” he added, as soon as the waitress had gone.

“Hey, so, hey…” one side-effect of getting drunk was that Mary had a much harder time getting her sentences going. It was much like trying to start a pull-motor on an old boat. “You never finished your story. Your complaint. Your complain-story about your parents.”   
  
He shrugged. “It’s stupid. It’s just...I keep thinking that they’re going to get over it eventually. But it just never happens.”

“I guess I don’t really get what their problem is. Do lawyers and doctors have some sort of vampire/werewolf dynamic I didn’t know about?”

Jed laughed helplessly, his eyes getting all crinkly edges in a way that Mary found so inappropriately appealing. “My parents think that there’s just no...place to go in medicine. You study law and that works as a stepping stone to public office. You study medicine and you...take care of sick people. Until you die. That’s not good enough for my parents.”

Mary couldn’t help herself--she knew that Jed was genuinely struggling with this but he looked so comically morose sitting here in this ridiculous bar with the remains of a violently pink margarita in front of him. She applied herself to her drink again in an attempt to stifle her laughter but only wound up snorting some of the liquid unbecomingly.

“Ugh,” she managed. “Nose-tequila.”

“What are you laughing at?” Jed passed her a small stack of napkins, which she used to dab at the lower part of her face and her now-damp collar.

Mary shook her head. “I shouldn’t…” She mimed zipping her lip with her fingers.

“No, come on, tell me,” he said in his wheedling tone, which she had never successfully resisted.

“It’s just...well…I mean, do you not think that this is the firstiest of all possible first world problems?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “As opposed to your problems, which are mainly about securing clean drinking water and avoiding roving gangs of those dudes from Mad Max, right?”

“I’m just saying… ‘I only became a super-successful surgeon and not a high-powered lawyer! Like, oh no! I’m only in the 5% but my mom really wants me to be in the 1%!” She couldn’t stop herself. She didn’t know if it was liquor or just her own inability to keep her judgements of other people’s lives to herself. No wonder Jed thought of her as an unrelenting goody-two-shoes.

Jed sat back in his seat and folded his arms. “First of all,” he raised one finger “that is a terrible impression of me. Hone your craft. Second of all, I’m not going to drunkenly spill my guts to you if you’re just gonna make fun of me.”

Mary could not help but grin in relief that he wasn’t actually angry with her. “Hey pal,” her voice softened, seemingly of its own accord, “it’s either me or the bartender. And she has one eye.”

“That shouldn’t impair her listening skills.”

“I meant that she doesn’t look like a woman who has a ton of sympathy for wealthy dudes with good careers whose parents want him to be slightly wealthier with a different good career.”

Jed towards her. Too close to her, in fact. Mary guessed there were three--no, two--inches between their faces. “You may be right but, come on, there are very real ramifications to worry about here,” he said earnestly. “I’m facing down a future where I may never be able to afford a second, miniature horse stable for my guest house.”

“Where will your guests’ miniature horses sleep?” Mary asked in a scandalized whisper.

“Now you understand my pain.”

Mary laughed and, as she did so, realized that she had been holding her breath. It was a strange mixture of relief and disappointment when the waitress appeared again with their drinks.

“Boot alcohol!” Jed enthused but the two of them jolted immediately as a chair fell--or was thrown--hitting the wooden floor with a clatter. Instinctively, the two of them looked at Anne and Byron’s table.

***

**there is a mechanical bull here. and Byron is riding it.**   
_…_   
_…_   
_…_   
_I’m sorry I didn’t reply for a really long time but I was looking for an emoji that looks like my face right now and there is no such emoji. THIS IS A SITUATION FOR WHICH THERE IS NO EMOJI._

**he’s shockingly good at it**

**like, if this surgery thing doesn’t work out, this could be a pretty solid backup plan**

**that movie 8 seconds was about bull-riding, right? Is 8 seconds still how long they have to stay on? Because it’s been at least a minute**

_...i don’t know anything about bull-riding._

**this is almost hypnotic. and I thought everyone from the south knew about bull riding.**

_yes, Mary, half of my elementary school field trips were to rodeos_

**oh shit, he’s trying to stand up**

_WHAT? ON THE BULL? IS HE STANDING ON THE FAKE BULL?_

_Mary?_

_come on, don’t leave me hanging here_

_Marrrrrrrrrry…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY! So, it has been approximately forever since I updated this I know I said that it would be only three chapters, but it's gonna be more, so...okay? 
> 
> In the next chapter: Mary reveals her dark past, Jed discusses his relationship angst and also there are egg McMuffins!


	4. The Question of Risk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has an extensive history of poor decision-making.

“Crank it up!” someone yelled predictably. Bar patrons historically liked to see just two kinds of people on a mechanical bull: people who were hot chicks and people who were in the process of falling off a mechanical bull.

At first, though, it seemed that Byron was not going to give them what they so obviously craved. The odd, truncated “bull” bucked wildly in all directions but Byron didn’t even seem particularly troubled, the same odd, indifferent stare on his face the entire time.

“Jesus. Did he, like, go to bull riding school or something?” Jed wondered as someone started up a cheer in the back: “FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!”

The unseen operator cranked the machine, presumably as high as it went. From the way it was moving, Mary certainly hoped there wasn't an even higher speed.

“Byron,” Anne shouted from the awkward wooden half-corral that separated the mechanical bull…area from the rest of the bar. “Stop this right now!”

Byron’s face was no longer visible, whipping by too fast to be anything more than a pinkish blur, but Mary had the distinct sense that he heard Anne and was ignoring her.

“He thinks he’s proving something,” Anne muttered to no one in particular.

“Oh shit!” Jed shouted, slightly too late to stop the partially-crumpled can of Bud Light that soared through the air towards Byron. It hit him somewhere in the torso region but the impact—or maybe just the sheer effrontery of the gesture—was enough to apparently enrage Byron.

They watched in horror as he lurched forward, drawing his legs up until he was balanced on his knees on the bull. He crooked one knee upwards, clearly intending to rise to his feet.

“So this is how Byron dies,” Jed observed thoughtfully.

Someone in the bar hooted in what sounded like genuine approval as, for one glorious second, Byron Hale planted both feet on the back of the bull and stood fully upright. There was a distant roaring noise, like a truck passing on the highway and Mary realized belated that the sound was coming from Byron himself.

How many glasses of scotch did he have?

Before any of them had time to react, Byron pitched forward inevitably, tumbling over the very real-looking pair of longhorns affixed to the front of the bull and crashing to the floor on his right side and his face.

Anne and Mary ducked awkwardly under the wooden barrier to reach Byron’s prone form. He wasn’t moving, but he was emitting a low mewling sound, like a baby animal.

“Byron…” Anne frowned, taking his pulse with one hand and peeling his eyelid up with the other. “You giant fucking twat.”

Mary supposed that meant he was probably going to be okay.  

“Aren’t they supposed to have mats or…sawdust or something?” Jed wondered, looking at Byron’s ungainly sprawl on the plain pine floor.

“Well, this part of the floor does seem a little dustier than the other parts,” Mary offered.

***

**it’s okay, no head injury!**

_WTF IS HAPPENING?_

**I think it was some relationship power-play thing, honestly. Anne is super mad at him but also I think they are maybe going to go have sex?**

_how drunk is everyone involved in this? on a scale from happy-face emoji to beer bottle emoji?_

**Six beer emoji....emojis? Emoja?**

***

“See, that’s what Hale needs more of!” Jed gestured expansively at Anne and Byron, leaning heavily on one another as they made their way out the door.

“More mechanical bulls?”

Mary returned to their half-moon shaped booth, sliding easily into the middle. The gliding movement of her jeans against the fake cowskin of the booth upholstery was surprisingly delightful and she slid back and forth a couple more times for the hell of it.

“Metaphorical bulls.” Jed clambered into the booth after her on his hands and knees. “The thing about Hale is, he’s not actually the worst surgeon in the world.”

He was close to her again. He smelled like liquor and the same soap that she sometimes caught whiffs of in the hospital. He said “acturelly” also, so Mary knew he was pretty drunk too.

“He’s just got no...imagination! He can’t react to stuff, he just does whatever he’s memorized. You’ve got to be willing to take risks,” he pounded his fist into the palm of his hand, giving Mary a blazing stare as though she had argued with him. “If you don’t push yourself beyond what you know...you never find anything!”

“Take risks with other people’s bodies?” Mary’s movements were loose and reeling, like a puppet on a particularly long string, jerking and looping around the stage.

“No,” Jed raised a professorial index finger, “that’s why _you_ don’t take risks. Hale doesn’t because he’s afraid, which is a different thing.”

“I take risks!” Mary was full of liquored-up assertiveness and she didn’t appreciate the dismissive shrug Jed gave her in return.

“Okay,” he said.

She wasn’t about to let him get away with that. She gave him a hard poke in the chest. “Nonononnono...you think I don’t take risks.”

“Fine!” He quailed, laughing, under her onslaught. “You live on the edge, I bet you have a cool motorcycle and everything.”

Mary drew herself up tall and gave him a challenging look. “When I was nineteen years old, I dropped out of college and moved to Europe to marry a man who was fourteen years older than me.”

Jed blanched in a very satisfying way. “What? Seriously?”

Mary nodded proudly and puffed out her chest as though waiting for someone to pin a medal on it. Jed leaned towards her, his eyes alight with interest. “So, you’re _married_ right now?”

“Well, no. Not now. I was married for...almost three years.”

Jed laughed delightedly. “Holy shit! Mary’s got a past.”

“Everyone’s got a past. Even risk-averse milquetoasts.”

“Okay, I definitely did not use the word milquetoast. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever used the word milquetoast.” He settled into the booth, sitting at a half-angle so he could look at her. “So, what happened?”

“You mean with the marriage? Or the divorce?”

“Both.”

Mary took a deep breath. Some part of her must have known that, as soon as she mentioned it, she would have to tell the whole story. Jed Foster would not settle for anything less. Maybe she wanted to tell the story, then.

Maybe she wanted to tell _him_.

“I met Gustav when I was in undergrad,” she started and could almost taste the icy, ozone flavor of the winter air in her sophomore year of college. “He came to Boston for a conference at my school, I was part of this student organization and I was assigned to drive him around. He was supposed to fly back to Germany at the end of the week—” Mary could not suppress a small satisfied, smile—”but he stayed for six weeks. Eventually, though, he had to go back home. It was either break up or go with him,” she shrugged. “I didn’t want to break up.”

“Holy fuck,” Jed marveled. “You could have gotten your organs harvested. How did your parents feel about this?”

Mary laughed. “Oh, they were furious. If you could actually murder someone via skype connection, I’d be dead right now. Plus, I used a big chunk of my scholarship money for that semester to buy my plane fare, so, you know, that didn’t help my case.”

The rift had mostly mended now, mended enough that she could make a joke of it but sometimes Mary worried that there would always be that little shadow of distrust between her and her parents, her father in particular. No matter how dutiful, how sensible and practical she had been in her life, she believed he thought she was fundamentally flighty in some way. Not to be depended upon.

But that was a different story. One that required more liquor.

“But we made it work, Gustav and I. We went everywhere. We had adventures.” The world had felt almost enchanted at first, everything was new and thrilling and strange to her. Gustav was a perfect partner for exploration, solicitous and kind but also fun-loving and endlessly fascinated by Mary herself and how she saw the world.

“We got married so I could stay in the country and also because of some weird inheritance stuff with his family. I think I was actually technically a baroness for a while there,” Mary added thoughtfully.  

“So what happened?” Ah, the inevitable question. She had asked it of herself many times, particularly during one painfully long and tearful flight back to Boston

“Well, like I said, Gustav was significantly older than me and it just got clearer and clearer over time that we were in...different places. He had already done a lot of things he wanted to do in his life and he was looking to settle down a bit, you know? Have some kids.” She had the distance now to make it sound so reasonable, so sensible. She could almost forget, now, had it had been like cutting out a part of herself when she realized that remaining with him and sinking into the life he wanted was going to drown her.

“And you didn’t want that?”

“I wanted this. Well. Not specifically this.” Who in their right mind wanted Smelton, Nevada? “But I wanted to be a surgeon. I wanted to be of use. And I wasn’t completely sure about the kids thing. He deserved to have that, though. And I deserved to try for what I wanted. We just...couldn’t do it together, at the same time.”

“Wow.” Jed’s expression was opaque. Was that a “wow, what a horrible, child-hating shrew you are”-wow? Or more of a “wow, what a poorly planned and executed relationship”-wow? Or just a simple “I’m drunk as shit”-wow?

“That’s a hard thing to do,” Jed said finally, admiringly.  

“Getting a divorce?” The hardest part of the divorce, in Mary’s experience, was deciding to get it. The actual process was quite clean and sterile, like any good excision should be. She knew, though, that it wasn’t that way for everyone.

“Not even that. Just...being honest, I guess? About what you want.”

Mary cocked her head at him a little like an uncomprehending dog and Jed struggled to explain. “Sometimes I feel like a relationship can gather weight and momentum over the years and trying to...change the trajectory is like...like trying to divert a train by hand.”

“You’re talking about Eliza,” Mary said, in the interest of clarity, and Jed nodded.

“We’ve been together a long time. A really long time.” His tone was strange, both weary and fond, like someone looking back on an experience they were lucky to have survived. “We started “dating” when I was thirteen years old, but we grew up together. I don’t think there’s ever been time when I didn’t know her. And yeah, it was on and off over the years depending on what we were doing, but we always just seemed to...come back to one another. It felt sort of inevitable, I guess. I know both of our families feel that way and Eliza does too and they’re all just waiting for me to get my shit together and ask her to marry me.”

“Why haven’t you?” Mary’s throat was unaccountably thick, so she sipped a boot-shot to loosen it.

“I feel like we’ve been playing this long distance relationship chicken for a long time now. Asking her to marry me would mean that one of us would finally have to break and uproot their lives for real. And I...don’t want to leave. I like it here. Well, not here. But in California, at the hospital. I don’t want to live in New York, I don’t want to search for another position. I don’t want to get new friends.”

“And you want those things more than you want to be with her?”

“No!” Jed answered immediately, the jerk of a knee. He paused for a moment, though, and reconsidered, his eyebrows knitting awkwardly. “Maybe I do,” he admitted. “But if so," he added immediately, “then Eliza is the same! Nothing’s stopping her from moving out here.”

“Except for _her_ life and her career and all the things she loves about New York,” Mary pointed out.

“Yeah,” Jed said, with a sort of wondering finality, as though this were the very first time that he had ever considered such a thing. “I don’t even…know. What those things are for her. It’s like I’m not even a part of her life anymore. Just this weird satellite, floating far away.”

He looked at her, earnestly questioning. “What does it mean, when the both of us love our separate lives more than we love being together?”

Mary had a lot of answers for him. Some of them honest, some of them comfortingly false. Many self-serving in a way that made her, drunk though she was, ashamed of her own selfish urges.

So, instead, she offered him no answers at all. “It means,” she scrambled out of the booth with lots of confidence but little grace and stretched her arm out to him, “it’s time to dance.” She wiggled her fingers in his direction until, with a laugh, he took her hand.

***

Someone had plugged the jukebox and there was a stompy Old 97s song playing when the two of them got up. They whirled crazily around one another, arms akimbo. There was no one else out on the floor which, come to think of it, probably wasn’t actually a dance floor at all.

But, if they didn’t want drunk people to awkwardly gyrate in the middle of the room, they shouldn’t have a jukebox in a bar, Mary thought.

It was all very fun and platonic, exactly what a night of letting off steam with friends should be, until the song changed.

Suddenly, there was a sweet-voiced woman singing sadly about the foolish inevitability of impossible love. It was a slower song and not one suited to wild thrashing. The two of them gradually stopped moving and looked at one another, uncertain as to how to proceed.

Jed moved first, putting one hand on her waist and one on her back, pulling her into him. Mary’s arms went up to loop around his neck automatically, muscle-memory from a thousand middle school dances.

_“_ _It doesn_ _’_ _t matter where the line is drawn,_ _‘_ _cause you always lead me on_ _…”_ the singer crooned mournfully as they swayed in time with one another.

It occurred to Mary then that Anne and Byron were long gone. The people in this bar didn’t know their names or their faces or the lives they had back in California. In a very real way, they were completely alone.

Jed seemed to have had a similar thought. They were barely moving now, just a little tidal sway against one another, the space between their bodies shrunk to less than a finger’s width. He was looking at her, his eyes so dark and serious and he dipped his head and—

Mary dropped her own head, resting her chin on his shoulder and looking away from him. She was sure that he could feel the breath coming fast in her throat and rapid flutter of her heartbeat in her chest, her wrists and fingertips, the skin of cheeks.

“I have to…um…bathroom…” she mumbled, disentangling herself from him with difficulty and all-out fleeing for the ladies’ room.

***

Mary had never been so grateful for a single-occupancy bathroom in her entire life. She locked the door behind her and pressed her face flat against the cool tile of the wall. Then, remembering where exactly she was, she leapt back. She couldn’t even imagine the complex microbial communities that were thriving on that wall.

She tugged her phone out of her back pocket and scrolled through her contacts until she found Emma’s name. It must have been late, but Emma didn’t even sound tired when she answered. “Mary?” she said, her voice low and steady and gently-accented. A comforting familiarity. She sounded like she’d been waiting for the call.

“Okay. It’s DEFCON 1 over here. You gotta talk me down.” Mary was sweating. She felt like she’d greedily swallowed something too hot to eat and had to open her mouth now to let the discomforting steam billow out.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Emma soothed. “You’re a smart lady. You’re not going to get all up in someone else’s relationship. Even if it’s a bad relationship. _Especially_ if it’s a bad relationship.”

“Especially if it’s a bad relationship,” Mary repeated to herself, like a mantra.

“You know that anything that starts with cheating is poisoned—”

“—Even if the relationship is basically already dead and the two of them clearly haven’t even seen each other in months, let alone had sex and he definitely doesn’t love her anymore and you can tell because of the way he looks when someone says her name? And also if, in this hypothetical scenario, you also haven’t gotten any in nearly a year and nearly a year is a really, really long time?” Mary’s words were all jumbled up, climbing all over one another on the way out of her mouth.

“Lord, give me strength,” Emma sighed. “Okay, yes. Yes to all of it. No matter how bad the relationship is, he has to end it before he starts something with you. If it’s like you say, then it won’t be too hard to do that. You can wait, you can both wait.”

“Wait—is this some sort of southern abstinence-only thing? Are you about to tell me to save it for marriage? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, that ship has sailed.”

Emma laughed. “Look, I fully support you going to pound-town with Jed Foster, but only with single, unattached, not-someone’s-boyfriend Jed Foster. Mary Phinney is no one’s side-piece. You deserve better than that.”

Mary’s sigh was like a deflation. She sagged a little bit, leaning heavily on the sink. “Emma, you are the greatest friend in the history of friendship.”

“I know I am,” Emma told her magnanimously. “And whatever you do, do not drink anymore. You’re right at the tipping point and you don’t want Drunk-Mary making your decisions right now."

“Got it,” Mary said, with as much conviction as she could muster.

***

By the time Mary finished her call, Jed was back in the booth, seemingly content to pretend that their moment on the dance floor hadn’t happened at all. “You all right?” he asked her, when she slid back into the booth. He took her elbow delicately, like he was helping out of her out of a carriage at the opera, rather than into a cheap booth in a dive bar. In that moment, she was overwhelmed by such a yearning, not even entirely for him (though that was definitely part of it). It had just been such a long time since she had been close to someone—close in all the ways that people were.

She wanted to be held by him, enfolded by him. She wanted to find out if the rest of him was as warm as his hands, if the rest of him smelled like the skin of his neck where it met his black hair.

Everything Emma said on the phone was true. It was a true and it was good and right and sensible. It was exactly what a mature, right-thinking adult person would do. It was exactly what Mary Phinney almost always did.

Almost.

Maybe it was because she had just rehashed the story with Jed, but Mary could not help but be reminded of how she had felt when she practically drained her savings account, when she took a red-eye to Frankfort with absolutely no assurances about what would be waiting for her on the other side. It had been the one great moment of irresponsibility, of lunacy, in her life.

And that had made the way it all ended so much more painful. Yes, she had cried on her way back to Boston. She had cried because she still loved the man, though she knew that she couldn’t make a life with him but she also cried because of the mess she had made of things. She had acted with passionate abandon and it had all blown apart around her. It was the failure, almost more than anything else, that stung the tears from her eyes.

Since then, Mary knew, at least part of her choices had been governed by a sense that she needed to atone for that moment of madness. Since then, she had been sober and sensible and right-thinking. She had flown through the ranks of medical school, she had paid back loans and had tepid, short-lived relationships with unremarkable men. She had made plans and stuck to them. She had kept her promises.

She had taken no risks and contented herself with modest rewards. Now, though, something in her (and it wasn’t just the tequila) was greedy. She wanted more. She wanted everything. She wanted to not think but only do and apologize later. Or never. She wanted to risk for itself, she didn’t even care about the reward.   

“Your face is so red,” Jed told her, laying the cold back of his hand against the blaze of her cheek.

Mary leaned forward and pounded the remains of her boot-cocktail. “I’m feeling fine,” she said cheerfully, reaching for the second margarita that the waitress had helpfully deposited at their table.

***

**immagonna hit it yef**

* **yeas**

***yes**

_NO! MARY! STOP RIGHT NOW! REMEMBER THAT HE IS BAD NEWS!_

**you dafted a gy with a custom comfedserate flad deacal on his truck**

_i was fifteen! and don’t change the subject!_

_…_

_…_

_mary! pick up ur phone!_

_MARY!_

_…_

_goddammit_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are the songs Jed and Mary danced to:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_mreSy00JI  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgacREq9Glg
> 
> (It was Thematically Appropriate Music Night at The Watering Hole) 
> 
> I'm not going to make any more predictions about how many chapters this will be (because I am clearly never, ever correct), but we are in the home stretch, I promise. In the next chapter: are you ready for some Jed POV? Because that's what is happening. Jed POV.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't know anything about hospitals (or Teslas, honestly). I think this will be at least three chapters. The next chapter will include night-driving, tense phone conversations, further evidence of Summers' incredible cheapness and, of course, our heroes reaching their destination. Which is only half the battle. Or, like, a fourth of it, maybe.


End file.
